Caught a Ghost
by baby blue eyes10
Summary: "I take a deep, unneeded breath, and turn towards the mirror, hoping to see myself. Instead, there is nothing there. No reflection. No me." What does it mean to be dead? What does it mean to be a ghost?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I really don't own this. After years and years of this shit you would think they'd know that by now...

Author's Note: Hello, my lovers! Mayhaps I should be updating other stories instead of starting new ones, but I really liked this story and it's been floating around in my head for awhile so I thought I would post a preliminary chapter and see if everyone else thought it was as good as I did. So, please have a read and let me know your thoughts. And as always, enjoy...:)

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><p>"<em>Stop acting like this. You're being crazy?" I shake my head as I continue to move towards the stairs, the only way out of the house from the top floor. The door will be my sanctuary, the clothes in my suitcase the costume of my escape, but I have to make it out of his grip and down the stairs to reach it. "I said to stop." <em>

_The hand around the back of my collar pulls tightly and I fall backwards, my body rushing into the arms of my attacker. I struggle, but he knows me too well and he knows the way my body struggles. "Get off of me or I'll," I sputter but he spins me around, pinning my much smaller body to the wall. _

"_Or you'll what? That little wand of yours is lying broken on the floor. You think you can hurt me?" I look into the eyes that are so similar to my own. The same dark green irises, the same dilating pupils. His mouth curls into a cruel smile, and I wonder if I twitch my lips if mine will do the same. _

"_I can still do magic without it." I'm bluffing and he knows it. He takes a moment to laugh at my accusation, releasing me slightly. I take my opportunity to push away, scrambling towards the stairs. He reaches out for me, and I rush forward. He grabs for my leg and I trip. _

_The floor comes rushing up at me and I feel my head hit the first stair with astounding force. The stars that rush over my vision blind me, blinking black and white as I feel my body tumbling. I hear a crack as my hand smashes against the marble, and I roll faster. When my momentum stops, I'm lying at the bottom of the stairs. My suitcase lies a meter in front of me, next to the door. If I stand and run, I can make it out of the house._

_My body doesn't move. There's something wet dripping over my hair, into my eyes and lips. My father calls out to me from the top of the stairs but I can't move; I can't speak or breathe. I hear the footsteps, and I close my eyes, hoping that pretending to sleep will keep him away from me. _

_The footsteps stop and I can no longer open my eyes. And I realize, I'm dying. _

I wake up, feeling lighter than I have in months. I gather myself off the ground and feel my forehead. It doesn't feel lacerated or marred in anyway, and I wonder if I imagined falling down the stairs or if it was a dream. I know for a fact that there was blood in my mouth, although at the moment it seems to be fine, no tale tell taste of rust. There's crying from somewhere near me, and I walk forward.

My father is on the stairs, looking blankly at a spot on the floor while tears openly fall from his eyes. "Dad?" I ask, not understanding. He ignores me. I walk over to him and place my hand on his shoulder, but it doesn't connect, like a barrier has been put between our flesh. I try again with the same result. When I look at my hands, there's nothing wrong. I still see the pale white flesh that I always have seen. Except, I realize, that my nails are now nude and they were definitely painted green before I fell.

An unsettling feeling begins in the pit of my stomach, and I kneel down in front of my father again. "Dad, please?" I beg, but he continues to ignore me, like I'm not even there. His eyes remain on the spot behind me and I know what I will find if I turn around. Things start to click into place. It wasn't all a dream.

There is a bloody handprint on the wall of the staircase, crimson streaking down the marble steps. My father's face has a deep scratch on the side I had lashed out at. I take a deep breath, realizing I haven't been breathing this whole time and I close my eyes, slowly turning around.

A crumpled body lies on the ground; it's mine, I realize, or at least it was. The strawberry blonde hair is now a darker shade of red, blood pooling in the tresses as they spread across the floor. My left arm is bent in a strange way, and I stretch out my arm now, still intact and unharmed. The blood on my face is drying, peeling away but there are tear tracks through the red, and I touch my face, but it's dry as well.

I finally understand that I'm dead. The body is me.

My knees buckle beneath me as I sink to the ground next to my dead body. My mind drifts, trying to understand what is going on, why I'm still here when clearly the person on the ground so close in front of me is no longer alive. My eyes try to meet my father's but he looks right through me. We sit in silence for what feels like hours, but it could only be minutes.

How do you measure time when you're dead?

My hands rest on my jean clad knees; the tight denim is clean though the knees of the body in front of me are bloody and torn. My short brown boots are laced and zipped and unscuffed as well. The short-sleeved red t-shirt I'm wearing seems to be the same as before, not sticky or stained like the body in front of me. My hair feels clean, my face feels unscathed, but I know that I'm dead.

There's movement across from me as my father stands up and walks towards the kitchen. I stand, almost without realizing it, and make my way after him. No sound comes from my feet, and I know that even if I jumped up and down, if I threw plates and cups and smashed into things, I would remain silent. I wonder if I'll ever speak to someone again, or if it will just be me and my voice unanswered forever.

What does it mean to be a ghost?

My father reaches for the phone, placing his hand up to touch the bloody scratch on his cheek as he catches sight of his reflection in the window above the sink. I stand behind him, hoping to see my own reflection but there is nothing there. As he dials the numbers on the telephone, I make my way out of the kitchen. I cross away from the body on the floor, the large puddle of blood that is slicking the marble floor, and I walk through the living room into the bathroom.

My hands won't touch the handle, so I walk forward, hoping that something will happen and that I'll be able to enter the room even when my hands won't work. I hit the door with a thud, feeling it reverberate through my body. I try again, more deliberate this time, and I feel the wood give some, and then I'm sinking through like it's made of soft sand. When I open my eyes, I'm standing in the bathroom. I take a deep, unneeded breath, and turn towards the mirror, hoping to see myself.

Instead, there is nothing there.

No reflection.

No me.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing except for the main character…and a small yacht where I spend my time toying around the Mediterranean (but, actually, not one of those either).

Quick Note and Hello – Thank you so much to those who have given this story a chance and have read and endured the first chapter. I hope that you are enjoying it so far, and that you look forward to reading on to see what more I have in store for you. As always, hello and thank you for your support. Now, please, enjoy. :)

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><p>My funeral isn't exactly what I expect it to be.<p>

First of all, I didn't think that I would be watching my body be lowered into the ground at the age of 17. Second, I didn't think that I would be standing directly next to the guests at my funeral, a measly six people including my father, my grandmother, my best friend, a priest, and two of the gravediggers.

At first, I plead with my father to see me. I beg my grandmother to open her eyes and stop looking through me. I ask Riley to hear me, to stop looking at my casket and believing that I'm stuck inside, gone from the world. Nothing results from my pleading, and so I stand opposite of the grave and watch as they lower my casket into the ground.

Riley's bloodshot dark blue eyes remain in my own eyesight long after my father, his cheek bandaged and his record clean after lying to the police about how I fell, has left. She sits in the folding chair that is sitting by my headstone, watching as my grave fills with dirt. She tucks her long black hair behind her ear, wiping away the last of the mascara from her eyes.

"Please, Rye," I whisper, knowing she won't hear me. Her eyes glance around, wandering over my standing figure. I realize she won't see me, won't listen to me, won't laugh at my jokes, pick out my clothes, or gossip with me ever again. My fists clench of their own accord while I grind my jaw tightly to keep the tears from springing into my eyes.

Riley says nothing, as the last of the dirt is placed upon my chestnut coffin which contains my cleaned up and dressed body. She looks down at her pocket, pulling something small out. I see the glint of the chain, recognizing the small "best friends" charm on the necklace we gave bought for each other for Christmas three years ago. We'd vowed that night that we would be best friends forever, no matter what happened.

I can't help the whimper that escapes my mouth as she drapes the chain over my headstone, touching her hand to my carved name, and then with silent tears on her face, walks away from the cemetery towards the car that waits for her on the road. My face burns with the salt from my tears as I walk over and trace my finger just above the locket.

I know my fingers won't touch the cool metal, but I long to touch it anyway. My legs slowly crumble beneath me, and I unceremoniously collapse under the darkening sky, watching as the tears that drip from my eyes disappear before they touch the ground. I'm a ghost of a dead girl; and I know, it would be easier if I could just disappear as well.

I end up outside of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; the only place I know that contains ghosts of all sorts. Although, if I'm perfectly honest with myself, I'm not sure how I got here. The last thing I actually remember was laying on the newly turned dirt at my gravesite, closing my eyes and trying to think of a solution to my problem. The next thing I know my feet are pulling me up a path towards a large gate that I have had the fortune of seeing every year for the past six years.

The gate is shut, but as I walk towards it, my boots making no footprint in the mud, the gate swings open of its own accord. I take a deep breath, feeling something stir in the pit of my stomach that feels a lot like relief. I send up a silent prayer to whatever god is out there for the invention of magic. It strikes me as funny that when I was alive I would often do that; praise whatever god I had chosen to believe in that day. But now, as a ghost or a spirit or whatever it was that I am, I wonder if there could actually be a god. And if there was, did that mean that I could now communicate with him or her directly?

Things to think about later, I conclude, while making my way up to the large castle. I walk past the Quidditch field, and the first light of hope begins to filter into my mind. Hogwarts is a place of magic, is a place that has always felt like home to me when I couldn't have my life at my own home. And best of all, Hogwarts was home to the most powerful and genius-level wizard I had ever heard of: Albus Dumbledore. If he couldn't help me, then I was afraid no one else could.

I reach the castle doors, the Great Hall standing just steps in front of me, and I wonder for the first time since I've arrived at the castle just how to approach all of this. Do I knock on the door? If I knock on the door will anyone be able to hear it? Will my hand go right through? Should I just dissolve through the door as I've discovered I can?

I decide to take the most normal approach, stepping up to the enormous doors and knocking on them. As I suspect it will, my hand slides right through the wood without making contact. I pull myself back, the feeling of sliding through a solid object not one that I'll be able to get used to for quite some time, and I cross my arms in front of my chest. Deciding against trying to knock a second time, I grit my teeth and push myself through the door to the castle, feeling the magic held within the wood sink into my ethereal body.

Stranger than anything I've felt before, the magic courses through me, making goose bumps appear on my arms, my fingernails tingle, and my toes curl. It's pure, unadulterated magic housed within the walls and doors and every stone in between, and it feels like I have the power to do anything. But the feeling leaves me as I push out through into the entrance hall, and I feel the sudden jolt of nothingness once again.

Although being aware of my body and its movements had never been something that I truly wanted to think too deeply on when I was alive, now that I was a ghost, or something of the sort, I wished to be able to feel myself bump a doorway, or feel the fullness of my feet hitting the ground. I turn my thoughts away from the depressing direction they are taking, and I do a small turn around the amazingly large entrance hall.

It feels so much larger when alone, I note first and foremost, and the second thing I notice is that Hogwarts seems to be asleep. It's as if the castle itself is sleeping, gathering its strength for when the students arrive and it must perform for its guests once again; where it must unfold secret doorways, tapestries that lead to forbidden hideouts, and open its deepest self to hundreds of children eager for knowledge.

I move forward, towards the stairway, and I pause again. Knocking hadn't worked, but I had felt the magic in the school. I know what it can do. So maybe, if I allow myself to hope, calling out into the quiet would rouse someone into recognizing my presence? At least I could trouble the Bloody Barron to take a break to lead me to Dumbledore?

I clear my throat, clenching my fists together as I quietly utter, "Anyone there?" I shake my head at myself, knowing that wouldn't be loud enough for someone right next to me to hear. Biting down on my lip, I contemplate my courage and realize just why I was sorted into Ravenclaw and not Gryffindor – my smarts greatly outweighed my meager courage. _Do it_, I hear my mind scream at me, and so I open my mouth the second time, taking in a deep breath and letting my voice rise. "Hello? Is anybody there?" My voice feels like it reverberates off the walls, down the corridors and into the confines of the quiet castle. I feel my confidence rise and I yell again. "Please, can someone help me?"

There is no answer at first, and I start to panic. If no one can see me, then no one can help me. I don't want to be doomed to walk the earth alone and unseen for the rest of my ghostly existence. Then, out of the corner or my eye, a figure moves in the darkness. I pause the pacing I didn't remember starting and wait for it to approach.

"Hello?" I utter, timidness seeping into my voice, and I pray that whoever it is can hear me and see me. When no response comes, my heart begins to race, my eyes peering deeper into the darkness. There is no more movement, and then, without warning, she appears directly in front of me. A startled gasp escapes me, the squeaking bounding off the walls in a cacophony of embarrassment.

"You're the Grey Lady," I realize, taking a small step back to fully see the woman in front of me. She looks at me with a calculating stare, taking in my appearance, or lack of solidness, and then meets my eyes with a sharp gaze.

"You are a ghost." She states, nothing surprised in her voice. She is soft-spoken, but a commanding presence, and I note that her eyes look sad; unlike any I have seen on any of the other ghosts. I remember the stories, about why she is never seen, and I wonder what it is about me that made her come from her hiding spot, and then I realize she is still looking at me like she knows more than she lets out. "You are a student, are you not?"

"I am, or was, I guess," I realize that my voice is pitching, rising and falling in excitement. She can see me. She can _actually_ see me. "I died, obviously, and then I came back, but no one can see me and I can't touch or feel anything and I didn't have a place to go so I came here. But I'm not really sure what I'm doing and you're the first person I've talked to in _ages_ and," I pause my ranting as she turns away, walking daintily up the staircase and not looking back. I watch as she continues and then speak. "Uhm, where are you going?"

Unaware that I am doing so, I start to fade slightly as I think about whether or not I have disappeared from her view. Then, she speaks, reassuring me. "I am taking you to Dumbledore. It is why you came, is it not?" She doesn't turn around, only continues to stride away from me, and I take a moment before racing after her, climbing the stairs and skipping the trick step by habit. I wonder if I can now step on it without getting caught in its wood. A question to answer later, I think, as I notice the Grey Lady disappearing around a corner.

We make our way through the empty corridors, past sleeping portraits on the wall, and I realize that for the very first time since I came to Hogwarts six years ago, that I haven't had to pause for breath or gotten tired during our trek. Dying hasn't been easy, but I realize that perhaps it does have a perk. I'm smiling slightly to myself when I realize that we've stopped in front of the omnipresent Gargoyle that guards Dumbledore's office.

It springs to life as the Grey Lady clears her throat. "I need to speak with Professor Dumbledore." There is no please, no question in her voice, only a command that the Gargoyle can do nothing but follow. It moves aside, and the winding staircase appears.

My heart begins to race against my chest as we near the top of the stairs. My palms feel damp and nervousness begins to color my vision. If Dumbledore doesn't help me, I'll have nowhere left to go, I realize, and that pressure feels enormous against my throat. The Grey Lady reaches up and knocks on the door, her knuckles making solid contact with the wood. Envy runs into my veins. And then as I begin to lose faith in ever finding a solution to my death, a voice rings out from the other side, one that immediately sets my feelings at ease.

"Come in."


End file.
